Othello
by KIS de Abre Pup
Summary: Byakuran is forgiving to the ones he loves. :: 10051. AU-ish. Character deaths. ::
1. Apple of Discord

**Authors: **Abreaction, KISproductions.

**Fandom: **Reborn

**Timeline: **Choice Ark

**Pairings: **10051  
**Rating:** M  
**Genre:** Angst/Tragedy  
**Warnings:** Multiple character deaths, AU-ish, blood, spoilers, shonen-ai, and Byakuran.  
**Disclaimer:** We want that sexy marshmallow, yo.  
**Summary:** Byakuran is forgiving to the ones he loves.

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**Othello**

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_**Chapter I-**_**Apple of Discord**

"Shou-chan, it's good to see you again."

Goose bumps instantly rise on his skin when he hears that voice, a chill running up his spine at the same time his blood freezes in his veins. Suddenly, the iron shackles around his bleeding wrists felt much more heavier, the coppery taste of blood in his mouth doubling in its unpleasantness. Slowly, his lips form a bitter smile, and he knows that if he had not already been on his knees, his legs would have given up on him the second he'd have heard that cheerfully pleasant voice.

Footsteps, his death toll ringing, come closer and closer, until Shouichi sees dark boots coming to a stop in front of him. He doesn't dare look up, his chained hands tight fists at his knees, where they clutch the relic he had once believed in, in its owner and how he would stop this wolf in sheep's clothing from destroying the entire world. He doesn't want to look up, not only because he doesn't want to see that eerily familiar face, but because somewhere inside of him a part of him still refuses, even now, to acknowledge the truth scattered around him.

The stench of death is thick in the air, as thick Sawada Tsunayoshi's blood in his hands.

"Maa, was chaining him really necessary, Kikyo-kun?" that sweet, lie-coated voice chirps. "I'm afraid Shou-chan isn't used to such rough treatments, so this really won't do at all."

A rough hand fists his hair, strong fingers gripping red tresses and harshly pulling his head up to meet amused purple eyes, the eerily-colored gaze more chilling than any gaze has right to be. Shouichi's glasses lay broken on the ground some feet away from him, and he's glad that he can only see a misshapen white and black blurry blob as Byakuran, the new ruler of the world, kneels in front of him.

This was _never _supposed to happen.

"Tsk-tsk. Now, now, Kikyo-kun, there's no reason to be mean to Shou-chan," Byakuran gently chides the man holding Shouichi by his hair, and with a frown, the fearsome holder of the Mare Cloud ring lets the redhead go.

"I still don't think you should be here, Byakuran-sama," the man says, clear annoyance spelled on his features as he crosses his arms over his chest. There are droplets of blood on his black coat, and Shouichi tries hard not to think of the young boy whose blood that belongs to. "There's no reason for you to get your hands dirty with this useless garbage."

Byakuran laughs, it is a cheerfully false sound that Shouichi knows carries a carefully disguised threat. "Nonsense! As a team, we must work together, or am I not part of the team, Kikyo-kun?"

Shouichi knows Byakuran's mind games all too well, he has had to learn the rules and how to cheat at them to survive under the white-haired Mafioso's watch while he had been under him. Byakuran's games are cruel, twisted, and more than a little sadistic. They're almost as bad as his words, which although coated with sugary sweetness, are twice as poisonous as his actions. If there truly was a devil walking among humans, it was this man.

And it was thanks to him that this devil now had complete control of _everything_.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he grits his teeth and wishes he could turn back the clock. Back to the day he made the stupid, irreversible mistake of traveling to the future not once, but numerous times just for the sake of his selfish reasons. All of this was his fault, his doing, his cross to carry. Everything that had happened up until now, all the deaths, the sacrifices and lost dreams, was because of his existence. How foolish of him, how _naïve_, to think that he could fix his past mistakes. Two wrongs don't make a right, he should have known this. Helping the Vongola family stop his nightmare from turning into a reality wouldn't save him from the punishment that awaited him once he died, he had done too many wretched things to ever be forgiven. What he had done, what he had created, what he had helped happen, none of it could ever be redeemed no matter how hard he tried. His sins were vile, and piled up they amounted to not only the destruction of the world, but all the deaths his existence had caused.

If only he didn't exist, this nightmare never would have happened.

"Shou-chan, do you not feel well?" Byakuran questions, the unparallel glee in his voice masked behind his fake concern only making his lies all the more worse, all the more _twisted_, and Shouichi doesn't think he can hold back the urge to be sick for much longer.

Regardless of that, he doesn't say anything, refuses to say a word because he knows anything he says will only make Byakuran's victory taste all the more sweeter than it already does. That is why he says nothing, does nothing, as another set of fingers, gentle and soothingly warm, begin threading through his hair, coarse and rough with dry blood. They caress his bloody cheek, tracing the deep cut running down the side of his face until they stop at his lips, powdery soft fingertips brushing against sensitive pink flesh.

His grip around the small keepsake only tightens.

"You known, I was lonely without you, Shou-chan. Our family just isn't complete without you."

Shouichi almost cracks a smile at that. He knows very well he never belonged in the Mafioso's family, and Byakuran knows that as well, knows it better than anyone else. It was only him and his twisted desire to how the redhead would fare in the vicious politics of his family, that kept Shouichi's position safe all these years. No, not even, because after all, he'd kept the real Millefiore guardians from him, proving that Shouichi had never been important enough to know of them. A smart move, because Shouichi would have no doubt been prepared to face them if given any information about the six Funerals he could have aided the Vongola family with.

His betrayal was inevitable, but how Shouichi wishes he could have taken more with him when he left Byakuran's side.

Gently cupping his face, the Millefiore leader forces him to look up into imploring purple eyes. "It hasn't been the same since you left us for Tsunayoshi-kun."

_Liar_, he wants to say. _We both know I have always been more than disposable. _He's not foolish enough to not known why he had been kept alive all these years, he'd outgrown that naiveté not long after getting involved with this dangerous world. To Byakuran, men were easily replaced, rarely was anyone not expandable, and Shouichi was nobody special. It had only been Byakuran humoring him, making 'little Shou-chan' believe he was actually doing something to stop him, when all along the man knew the redhead would betray him. The fake Sun Mare ring? Nothing, just a mere game Byakuran wished to play to see how Shouichi would react to him knowing his betrayal from the very beginning.

It's that part that hurts the most, Shouichi thinks, knowing that all of his efforts to stop his greatest mistake had amounted to nothing. The Vongola family, his only hope, the only power that could have stopped Byakuran's greed, dead because of him. Now there really was nothing in the universe that could take this man believing himself to be a higher being down. There would be no more plans, no more sneaking behind his back to meet enemies-turned-allies in the middle of the night in an attempt to defeat him, no more _anything_.

This time, this really was the end.

"If you keep crying like that," the man says, voice incredibly gentle as he caresses the side of the engineer's bloodied face, "I'll start crying, too, Shou-chan."

He hadn't realized he had been crying; his cheeks are too cold and his limbs are too numb with the unshakable truth he can no longer ignore:

Shouichi's dream, his last pathetic attempt at redemption; Tsunayoshi and his family's goal, in the end it had all burned to ashes against Byakuran's own selfish wish.

However, this time, with innocence shattered and veracity eclipsed by an incessant slew of lies spilling from Byakuran's lips, there was no potential phoenix to ascend from the ashes of their charred dreams; no second chances to rectify previous mistakes.

No hope. There's no hope; all asphyxiated by the vermiculated aspirations of a tyrant, his own personal cathartic dreams for a world with his hands clasped around the reigns.

Byakuran is the hairline fracture of his own creation, developed by Shouichi's own selfish, petty childish ambitions. Before his eyes, Byakuran had morphed into a fault, bisecting the world until it groveled at every blade of trampled grass he stepped on, every charred remnant of a life left in his wake, and pressed its lips against his heel.

"And when I cry," the man with the cosmos at his feet muses, his whispered sibilants lost in the vermillion strands of hair he was weaving his fingers through, working their way through the coalescent blood clinging to the tresses, "the world does."

At the belittling words, Bluebell makes a botched effort to stifle giggles behind her small hand, her high-pitch twitters reverberating off of the walls. Shouichi can feel Byakuran shift, the blurred mass of his head pivoting on his neck to face her. She silences.

Silent. Speechless like his hollowed out vocal chords, refusing to compose sentences and sonant diphthongs. Against his own better judgment and free will, he cannot speak. The mere thought of vaunting his own phobias, particularly to a man thirsting for blood and purgation of the world until only those who would agree to abide by his vermiculated sense of justice in order to keep their lives, ground his lungs, his heart and his throat to sand until he couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, couldn't live. Not while Byakuran was here, his untainted fingers tracing patterns onto his flesh with that smile on his face, never fading. Not while he can feel the blood splatters on his arms anhydrate into flakes, easy to chip away with a nail.

Byakuran tilts his head slightly to one side, his indistinct features concealed by locks of fogged white splotches most likely representing his hair.

There is anger like something akin to an acid pooling inside of him, brimming and on the brink of breaking him down until he was nothing left but a skeleton painted red with the blood of the lambs he led to the slaughter, which he thought would be their victory.

If he were never born, just reabsorbed into oblivion before he had the chance to supply the world's future dominator with his efficacy, then none of this would have happened. Then Tsunayoshi would be biting the chewed length of his pencil, which lacked an eraser that was worn to the quick with indecision on his math exam, as opposed to lying sixth or so feet under the soles of someone's shoes in an undisclosed area, with only patches of slightly dampened dirt from Shouichi's tear droplets to honor his death.

Not withstanding his lack of a clear image without his glasses, the redheaded engineer could nearly picture the perennial smile on the man's face. Byakuran was a monster that had escaped the confines of the realm nether Shouichi's bed, walking around in broad daylight with nothing but his smile masking his bloodthirsty desires as he spread his pyre to every blade of grass in the world, waiting for the day where the entire world would catch aflame, only for him to hold the hose.

"Tsk," Byakuran mutters, perhaps slightly agitated at Shouichi's refusal to even acknowledge his victory, albeit not showing it. He's taunting him with every word that rolls off of his tongue in that sickeningly honeyed voice of his. Absentmindedly, he cradles Shouichi's cheek in his palm, his thumb grazing over the deep gash in his jaw. As an automatic reaction, the redhead whimpers. "That face you're making, it's breaking my heart."

Bullshit.

The urge to spit at Byakuran's feet—obviously donning polished shoes—is very enticing. It's a dangerous game the Millefiore leader is forcing him to play, undoubtedly testing the limits of his self-restraint, waiting for him to split open at the seams.

A ferment atmosphere settles into place; Shouichi can feel it in between Byakuran's fingers on his skin, emanating from the sounds of the Millefiore boss' six strongest allies shifting, irritated that their leader isn't simply disposing of him, the unwanted variable in their otherwise perfect world. The polychromatic chess piece that would never belong to either integrated black and white set.

Shouichi remains silent, unwavering despite the tears skidding down his cheeks, the quiver in his bottom lip and tremor running throughout his shoulders, as Byakuran's foggy outline begins to shorten the gap in between them, his thumb stroking Shouichi's lower lip as the remainder of his fingers curl nether his chin.

Gentle. Byakuran was always so uncannily gentle, soothing, when it came to his touch. Even now, with the thick, unrelenting scent of blood weighing down Shouichi's heart and muffling his heartbeat, Byakuran's movements were fluid, comforting, in a twisted sense. Ridden with intentions veiled behind a devil's smile wearing an angel's mask.

Smiles.

Shouichi remembers Tsunayoshi's warm smile, brilliance emanating from the curve of his soft pink lips. His semblance of strength and ability to become flustered, arms flapping and cheeks flushed, over the most insignificant of compliments—all reduced to speckles of blood slathered onto fabric, flesh and tile. Byakuran's smile, a polar opposite of Tsunayoshi's pure one, is all he's left with. It never falters; never a slight dip in the corners of his lips. Never any sympathy or remorse. Just saccharine words concealing vehement bloodthirsty objectives.

As Byakuran's fingertips leave his skin tingling where they grazed, Shouichi's clutch around the relic in his hands grows tighter until he can feel it leave an impression in his palm.

"Shou-chan," he feigns disappointment, nonchalantly caressing his lips, "look at me when I talk to you."

Shouichi swallows bile, forcing it to slide down his closing throat. Even if the Byakuran before him is nothing more than a mesh of whites, lavenders and other various pastels contrasting greatly with sanguinary aims, he knows that, if their pupils meet, if only for an instant and nothing more than a mere glimpse of those irises with the pyres and ill-will of the entirety of Hell lapping behind them, Shouichi knows he'll be engulfed whole.

Byakuran's nails leave scratches in Shouichi's skin as they trowel into them, slightly, signifying his awry form of amusement with his captive's stubbornness.

The way Byakuran's lips form around his name, his tongue sliding over the vowels, the slight higher octave of the closing syllable; it sent ripples of chills spiraling throughout every plexus of Shouichi's body.

The natural albeit meek way that Tsunayoshi would say his name, almost as if he were someone whom he held closest to his heart as opposed to two collaborators conspiring to fulfill their dreams by bringing Byakuran down to taste the dirt—it almost made him feel wanted for means besides his technological skill, as if he had a friend working alongside him, someone to share the last breakfast dumpling with and protect from harm. Tsunayoshi gave him a purpose beyond pixels and theocracies.

His wrists, numb and raw from the chains scraping a layer of skin off, quiver as he clenches his fist around the tangible memory of the tenth Vongola boss.

The keepsake is more bloodstained than Shouichi's arms, which had cradled its owner as his breath slipped out from his lungs.

Byakuran traces his fingers along the laceration marring his engineer's flesh, his smirk never dissipating even as his fingers became coated in a thin layer of the crimson liquid.

"Look at me, Shou-chan," Byakuran reminds him before laughing in a high-pitched twitter, a sound not fit for the dreary, black world that the universe has now become.

Shouichi can hear the distinct sound of Kikyo inhaling, entrapping his breath inside of his lungs. Watching his God willingly dirty his precious hands in the blood of the unworthy was obviously not something he was used to witnessing. However, he makes no move to interject. All six of the Funeral Wreaths remain silent, some probably literally biting their tongues, as their opinions would most likely elicit a negative reaction from the Millefiore boss.

Shouichi vaguely wondered, a distant thought lodged in the innermost recesses of his mind as the little piece of Tsunayoshi in his hands refused to have his mind wander to any other topic for too long without reminding him of the blood spilled on his hands, why Byakuran would be so uptight, to tense. He won, received everything he'd ever wanted. Crushed everyone else's dreams and lives with that incessant smile on his face, but had finally conquered every single parallel universe.

The world was in Byakuran's palms, with him wearing the doomsday clock around his wrist, albeit he must have wanted more.

_The avaricious bastard_, Shouichi grinds his molars against one another, irritated at his own ability to stop his tears when something warm and salty enters his parted lips. _He's already taken everything from me, yet he wants more_.

Shouichi shudders as Byakuran's thumb slides across the side of his face, erasing all semblances of his tears from existence.

Kikyo's discomfort is a phase-change away from concrete as Byakuran's fingertips flit over Shouichi's sensory coral-pink folds of skin, his thumb resting on the bottom lip, slightly tugging on it until Shouichi automatically let a moan of discomfort escape his mouth. His smile grew. Everything is a game to him—from wars to lust.

Tousled, blood-matted red bangs rest upon Shouichi's cilium; he can feel their weight on his lashes, dipping over his dampened eyelids whenever he blinks. In its haze, he can see his blood on Byakuran's fingers meshing with the tear droplets, creating a blob of a light red hue staining the nebulous blob of his thumb.

Red. The vermillion liquid mixing into the mud.

Tsunayoshi's blood is chipping up to Shouichi's elbows, dried and burrowed into his own scabs of his flesh and in partially coagulated clumps under his nails. In the crevices of skin on his palms, he can feel the boy's blood flake as he tightens his grasp around the ring that once belonged to him—branding itself into his palm. He wills the memories of Tsunayoshi to escape him, because he's too weak to face them, too pathetic to allow his mind's eye to flash images of the boy, his warm smile and open arms, the tawny strands of his hair splayed across the pillow when he slept, the congenital sweetness of his voice—as opposed to Byakuran's faux, artificial one.

The nebulas may bow to Byakuran, but Shouichi would never grovel.

Byakuran's fingers dipped up and down as the redhead's lips formed over words he hadn't the strength to verbalize orally. His tongue uselessly rolls over unspoken words, his jaw working through the motions despite the unparalleled pain that erupted in the slash along his cheek.

"Hm?" Byakuran murmurs, his hand that was previously massaging Shouichi's red locks ceasing in its rub. "Shou-chan, you need to speak up, or your voice won't be heard."

_I hate you_. The words simple and blunt albeit something in itself; better than the nothing he had been presenting to the table. The blood on his hands is drying into thin scarlet shards. Even now, with wrists bound, Shouichi can still feel the slight frame in his arms, the synthetic fibers of the adolescent's shirt clinging to the skin of his chest as it was heavily weighed down with his own blood. There was no screaming, no wails, only ragged gasps of agony and deep honey-colored eyes with an almost ceramic glaze to them.

Life was slipping through the boy's fistful of Shouichi's shirt, knuckles white as he gasped out his final words, syllables melting into the next as the beads of blood clasping to the contours of his lips glinted in the light as they relaxed, his eyelids slowly merging together as his pupils sucked in their last blurry image of light. His diaphragm expanding and contracting for the (final) time; a surplus of blood—more blood than Shouichi even thought humanly possible—seeping from his wound and onto the red-haired boy's arms, sinking him elbow-deep into the crowning seconds of the child's brief, unfulfilled life. Tsunayoshi's hand in the engineer's tightening before loosening, the ring around his finger slipping off and into the redhead's sanguinary palm as he finally went limp, like the heap of laundry that used to lie in the corner of Shouichi's room until his mother forced him to throw it into the hamper, against his friend's stomach.

'_Shouichi-kun, please_…'

Tsunayoshi's last words weren't even coherent—just a fragmented sentence ridden with pathetic chokes for air and blood, so much blood, dripping from his lips, staining them forever red.

He was fourteen-years-old when unconsciousness inundated him, his naïveté—the trait that Shouichi had learned to abandon by the wayside soon after becoming a player in Byakuran's twisted game for his own entertainment—his own downfall. The sacrificial lamb offered to the gods as penance for Shouichi's mistakes. He was barely beyond the age of lush comprehension and feeling, having a very weak grasp on the world and its cruelties, still believing that there was good in every entity if he scavenged deep enough. With his heart still tethered to puppy love, short skirts swishing above the knees, and pinky promises. Still a boy who succumbed to the tears of another, offering up his own sleeve to dry their eyes and wipe them away.

Byakuran, the man who was now trying to warrant some distorted form of lust from his trophy locked in chains, decided that Tsunayoshi hadn't deserved to have his first kiss; to graduate from middle school, to get lost in the winding always of the high school on his first day as a freshman; to see the sunrise on the following day. All because Byakuran wanted to see the world burn to ash—and give none other than Shouichi, the teacher's pet, front-row seats to the crucifixion of mankind.

When Tsunayoshi's last shaky breath warmed his lips that Byakuran was now touching, Shouichi knew he had died alongside him. Their corpses juxtaposed, Shouichi's arms still hooked around the child's body, in the mass grave that the legitimate Funeral Wreaths had dumped the Vongolas' carcasses into before covering it with a thick layer of mud. As if they were never there, as if they were not worthy of something other than Shouichi's tears marking their existence six feet under the ground.

Tsunayoshi's death shoves its vermiculated reality down his throat, making him gag on the hours until he knows it will finally be his time to pay the price for his own sins, when he ran out of lambs to inadvertently slaughter to save himself.

Now, here he is, with Tsunayoshi's last words replaying endlessly in his ears and Byakuran's lips inching closer to his, allowing the child's murderer to caress and hold him in his arms as if they were star-crossed lovers.

Byakuran is heartless. With a smile on his face and sugarcoated words rolling off of his tongue, he doesn't have a soul.

Shouichi can feel a sore feeling in the rims of his eyes, irritated and chafed with Byakuran's already-blurred outline meshing into his penumbra. He can feel faint slips of breath, signs of life, fan across his cheeks as the dominator of mankind exhales. In spite of his breath, the man had no heart beating in his chest—eclipsed by a black hole that Shouichi himself unintentionally sparked, swallowing every modicum of spilled light around him until everyone was submerged in the darkness that only he had adjusted to, that only he could win in.

The man kneeling before him, as if in some vermiculated form of irony—the God of the Universe on his knees in front of his Judas, with his hands tangled in his hair and fingers stroking his lips, he hates him. Loathes him more than he despised himself the second he allowed Tsunayoshi to glissade away in his arms, leaving nothing behind but pitiful last words swirling around his conscience, a manufactured piece of him in his palms, and speckles of coppery liquid on Shouichi's cheeks, cohering to his skin if only to remind him of the innocent (sacrificed) for his own selfish mistakes of the past, the ones that he could never amend.

Daisy is grinding the tip of his boot into the marble tile almost enough to tangibly split it. His urge to feel the blood staining Shouichi's face as he slices it is nearly tangible. Shouichi can feel the holder of the Mare Sun ring refrain from licking his lips as his eyes covet the droplets of blood sliding down the redhead's hands, speckling the floor as they drip from his fingertips hanging limply at his sides, and the bloodstained shackles grasping at his wrists, gnawing at the skin.

The sound of Kikyo's heel perpetually meeting the tile echoes off of the walls, ricocheting in Shouichi's ears.

"Look at me, Shou-chan," Byakuran feigns heartache in his tone, his hands grasping the side of his engineer's face once more, his head slightly tilted to a slight angle as he gazed into the eyes of his partially blinded captive. "Is this any way to treat a friend who's missed your company?"

Friend. What a mocking choice of diction. As if he meant more than a speck of gravel on the soles of his shoes; as if he appreciated him and all of the sacrifices he made to attempt to save the world from the hellfire Byakuran created by playing with matches. As if his emotions and opinion had any form of value to him.

He refrains from regurgitating all over Byakuran's pristine white coat, from tainting him with a stain on his otherwise supposedly impeccable existence.

"He won't stop blubbering, Byakuran!" Bluebell abruptly whines, impatient as she twirls her fingers, her small shoes tapping against the marble.

"Don't refer to Byakuran-sama so intimately, flat-chest," Zakuro chastises, glaring at her with a small smirk on his face. He remains uniform, unmoving.

"Can we just kill the traitor already?" she mewls, stamping her foot against the floor.

Shouichi's breath catches in a pocket of his throat. He's freezing, his shoulders trembling and incapable of getting warm. He's not afraid of death, however. He deserves it; he needs it. For someone to smash him, crush him to bite-sized bits just like the cracks in the lenses of his glasses.

Halting in mid-caress, Byakuran's nails abruptly dig into Shouichi's flesh as his eyes flicker towards her. Shouichi can see the repressed inferno in his irises, locked behind the gates of his own withering self-restraint.

The corners of the world's dictator's lips twitch, slightly, but remain in its immaculate smile.

"Bluebell-chan," his saccharine voice peeps, his malevolent intentions almost tangibly dripping from every over-pronounced word, "say such things about a fellow family member again, and I won't hesitate in killing you."

From the way the corners of his lips arch slightly higher into a more voluminous smile, Shouichi knows that Bluebell's teeth must have literally began to chew her lip, forcing herself to keep her childish thoughts to herself lest she breathe her last under Byakuran's heel.

Shouichi can recognize every crack and sever in-between Byakuran's breaths, when he used to sit, his shoulder blades arched and brows knitted together as he contemplated his next action in Choice before moving a piece forward or backward either towards its doom or glory.

He knows him externally, even through the thick layer of fog his lack of prescription glasses ensued, he knew every inch of his face, the perfectly white color of the chalk his homeroom teacher used to use and would always make an annoying scratching noise when it scraped the blackboard.

Byakuran was a god; he is a religion that all has to abide by and adhere to prevent ending up having their mangled corpse tossed into a hollowed out patch of earth where the Vongola now reside. To prevent him from growing bored, one had to provide constant entertainment. Boredom meant disposal—there was always a replacement.

Except, apparently, in Shouichi's case. Chances were that even if he fumbled, Byakuran would wade away the vultures and keep his engineer and his position buoyant.

As the new ruler of the world, having no qualms about burning skyscrapers and quaint homes in suburban neighborhoods to ash, Byakuran would rather count the bodies like sheep than play board games with Shouichi when boredom dominated their rational thought.

Byakuran's fuzzy pupils rivet his, piercing into them until Shouichi is forced to avert his eyes and look away. Everything is a game for him. A game for dominance, to see who will have the last piece standing on the board even after he cheated, making sure that all of the odds were in his favor before rolling the die. Always dissecting the minds of his subordinates with his ever-present smile, mind games that picked and prodded at the very existences, morals and ideals of every entity around him until he could disseminate and relay every inkling of information about them without even attempting to recall the shape of their face. Simply killing and causing total war to erupt wherever he stepped for his own selfish purposes, uncaring of who he pulled under the murky depths of the water as long as the relentless waves stopped lapping at his own hips.

Even with an answer key—his own personal cheat code at Byakuran's games after befriending him, spending endless hours in his basement with pizza crumbs clinging to his lips and the game of Choice at their fingertips, he did not know anything about the murderer before him, their lips mere centimeters apart until Shouichi can make out the true deep mauve flecks swirling in the man's irises, fogged and in a blur, but there all the same.

He was always paradoxical, never a box that could be opened with a ring and the appropriate amount of impetus. Always an enigma in Shouichi's hands, a puzzle he could never solve.

There is lavender constellations locked behind Byakuran's eyes; Shouichi can number every luminous star and celestial being they had pointed out to one another through a telescope.

He wishes he could asphyxiate their brightness in his hand, snuff it out like Byakuran did to Tsunayoshi and his family, children playing mafia with their lives.

But, he knows that he alone had corrupted Byakuran's soul, malleable and easily swayed by the thought of potential immortality, power and world conquest. No Achilles heel to weigh him down; he was fully submerged below the invulnerable water—no weaknesses or love to limit him. Nothing to hold him back, with allies on every corner and only a sandbox full of schoolchildren in his way of total domination.

Through his unleveled breathing, Daisy displays his uneasiness rising to its pinnacle. Shouichi can feel it in the hearts of every Funeral Wrath behind him. There's one last throat to slit and it's the one that Byakuran is savoring, tormenting with his passionate touches and displays of mocking affection.

Byakuran burrows his nose into the crook of Shouichi's neck, nuzzling into the skin.

Despite the Vongolas' strength, remembering Gokudera shielding Tsunayoshi, claiming that they would have to tear his still-beating heart from his chest if they wanted to lay a finger on his beloved friend even though Byakuran wanted to murder the tenth boss first, Shouichi feels his shoulders tremble nether the man's touch. Byakuran is sitting on his throne of broken skulls and shatters bones, caressing him lovingly, his fingers tracing over his face as if Shouichi is just another conquered territory to add its name to his map of the world, just another land mass he had brought to his knees.

"It's good to have you back here with me, Shou-chan," Byakuran murmurs into Shouichi's flesh, his lips vibrating against his neck.

Byakuran always lies. Every consonant upon vowel slipping through his lips a fabrication. Every hollow promise; every supposedly legitimate smile at the dimples in Shouichi's cheeks when he grinned—all just a mere game to him.

"I…"

Eyebrow arched and interest clearly at its apex, Byakuran's repugnant smirk is veiled behind a cherubic curl of his lips. He takes amusement in the fact that Shouichi is fumbling with his words, his vocal chords forgetting how to convey what he has to say.

Shouichi realizes it; a stunning revelation for the ages that he should have came to terms with ages ago. Byakuran is not human, albeit he is not a god, either.

He's a monster.

Shouichi's nails feel as if they are cracking, splitting open as they trowel into the ring nestled in his grasp—the one last fragment of illumination in the darkness for his undulating, sputtering broken heart to cling to—one last chance for a botched cathartic instance—before shattering.

"You wish to speak, Shou-chan?"

"I…"

"Go on, Shou-chan," he tempts, the corners of his lips arching into a greater smile against Shouichi's skin.

"I hate you."

Byakuran is the white king, always the first to move.

So fitting, yet also equally unfitting.

He clothes himself in the purest white yet his soul is as dark as the varnished paint on the opposing pieces. Yes, he is definitely not human; maybe that explains why he can kill them so easily, discard them without ever feeling a hint of remorse. Shouichi knows the man likes to thinks of himself as a god, and loves it when others think of him as one, too. His sole goal is to rule the world, every world in existance, and that is all. He is cruel, insane, and utterly selfish behind that coying smile, and therefore, the concept of his inhuman greediness is easy for Shouichi to grasp now.

How blind he has been, how foolish of him to think of this demon as still human when he was obviously everything but. Byakuran is a monster, a spoiled child. It is as simple as defeating enemies and taking what he belives is rightfully his, because he's spoiled rotten, used to getting what he wants whenever he wants it. And like a child, he takes it without regarding anyone else but himself, taking pleasure in being spoiled by those who already love and worship him, Shouichi knows this all too well. After all, how many times had he had to leave his work to entertain the selfish man, even at the cost of Byakuran's precious dream falling behind a couple of days? How many times had he been put under a microscope, picked at and prodded at and put back together again, simply to rid the man from his boredom, even if only for a minute?

Too many times, too many times; a fast and easy way for Byakuran to pass the time while he waited for his dream to come true.

His dream, in the end it all came back to that. His reason, his motivation for doing everything he has done up until now, it was all for that one dream. He wants the world wrapped around his fingers. He wants it all under his sole command. He wants _everything_, and to him, it is as easy and as simple as the world falling to its knees before him and him sitting in his golden throne atop in the heavens. Because that is his dream, and because he has no care for what he has to sacrifice in order to make that nightmarish dream a reality. To him, making his dream come true is like playing a game of chess. To make that dream happen, he has to win, and to win, he has to play the pieces, map out his moves, and be thousands of steps ahead of his opponent.

His power allows him to do that, to cheat where no one else has ever cheated, and that power is what draws others to him. He _has _the power to make his dream come true (has made it come true, Shouichi bitterly reminds himself), to make others believe in his dream, to give themselves to him as lambs to sacrifice to make his hellish dream a possibility. His pawns willingly line themselves for the slaughter, to be used to win that game of chess, because they all believe in that dream. Byakuran knows this, and he loves it. He lives for the purpose of using them to make the opposing king fall, and when the black king falls, the game is over; the pieces surrender and the board is his and his alone to do with whatever he wants.

He is the white king, his pawns love him, protect him as his loyal shields and follow his every word to the letter because he is God. He doesn't need to do anything other than move the pieces and send them to their deaths, a pastor in a flock of black sheep.

And as the most important piece in the board, he sends his pieces out into the battlefield, never caring if they get caught in a war that will inevitably end their lives at some point of the game. He does not treat them as family because only the strong, only the understanding, only the obedient, only the ones with the utmost loyalty and fiercest devotion to his dream, will be a part of him. You have to earn it. You have to deserve it. Being under his wing is a sacred privilege only he can grant on others, and one he bestowed upon Shouichi even while knowing the redhead would one day turn from his side of the board to join another king.

He was chosen to be one of his perfect (imperfect now, isn't he?) pawns, chosen to move Byakuran beyond the imperfection of humans, to the heavens, and to make him the all-encompassing sky that engulfs the world. Foolishly, Shouichi had done just that, even while he had tried with all his might to bring Byakuran crashing to ground and show him how much of a mortal he truly was. Because that had been Tsunayoshi's goal, hadn't it? Not to kill, but to defeat the boogieman who had engulfed the world in his dangerous nightmare.

Shouichi almost laughs at the utter naiveté of that, but mostly, he almost laughs at himself for being _stupid _enough to actually cling to those words as well. He should have known better then to believe they could win without having to kill Byakuran, that they could stop the heinous monster without having to take his life. He's not innocent, not like Tsunayoshi, he should have known better. He's killed before, has had to wash blood from his hands. No one knows better than himself how tainted he is, how different he is from Tsunayoshi, who honestly believed they could have won without killing.

How Shouichi wishes he could still believe in that pure, beautiful image, but he knows better.

War requires sacrifices, and so did having peace. There could be no free world without first shedding blood; blood of the innocent and blood of the guilty.

Byakuran is guilty, and if anyone deserves to be killed to ensure the peace of a free world, it is him. He is rotten, evil, the greediest of them all. His sole, selfish desire to consume absolutely everything has caused death, darkness, and a sea of blood to engulf the world. Byakuran is a brutal man, a merciless demon, a true monster in all meanings of the word, and Shoichi hates him for it. Hates him because he can still remember the days when he had known nothing of this dangerous world he has lives in for years now, the days when a game of chess was only a harmless way for them to pass the time as they waited for their next class to start.

But must of all he hates him because more than anything else, Shouichi wishes he could go back to those days when he had truly believed Byakuran to be his friend and the defeat of the opposing king didn't have to mean the death of an innocent child.

Shackles click together when he covers his mouth to stop himself from puking at the memory of the death of the only true friend he ever had, of the horrid, gory images and the unfairness of it all. Tears fill his eyes again, but they don't have a chance to fall because he is suddenly being embraced by arms that are to the deceiving eye meant look comforting, but are actually suffocating him with the disgusting stench of death.

"Oh, Shou-chan," Byakuran murmurs, loud enough for his pawns to hear, and Shouichi doesn't know if they can detect the almost invisible hint of anger underlining the cloying sweetness that are the white-haired Mafioso's words, "I'm sorry Kikyo-kun bullied you, but I promise you, I only ordered him to dispose of Tsunayoshi-kun and his friends. So don't worry, I forgive you for being mean to me."

"And rest assured Kikyo-kun will be scolded for what he did, the naughty boy," he laughs at the end, shoulders shaking with it as Shouichi manages to see the slightest change of emotions pass through the holder of the Mare Cloud ring. A sliver of fear at the prospect of punishment, a hot flash of anger at Shouichi for being the cause of it all, and finally, willful resignation because Byakuran is his God and his God is sacred.

He wishes he could cover his eyes and pretend he is somewhere else, but his hands are holding the only thing he has left to remember the precious dream Tsunayoshi had entrusted him with. He doesn't want this beautiful demon to take that, too. Although, he can't help but shudder at the icy tone hidden under the faux cheerfulness that is Byakuran's voice, his stomach twisting into a thousands knots at those last words.

Because he now knows why he hasn't been killed, what he has been reduced to.

"Come on, Shou-chan," the encasing arms wrapped around his frame, shackles in disguise robbing him of his last free will, gently pull him up to his feet, supporting him when Shouichi's legs prove to be too shaky to hold him up, "let's go home."

Shouichi is Byakuran's trophy, proof he won and squashed away all hope of salvation. He is being kept alive to see the horrors Byakuran will produce, to be tortured by the knowledge that without him, none of the hellish nightmares that will soon come to pass could have ever been possible.

He is going to be killed, not physically but mentally, and in the slowest, most torturous way possible for having dared betray the man who should have been his only savior.

But he is not afraid of dying, there is no fear left him, no other emotion but the raw, pulsing anger bubbling inside of him, boiling until it fills to the rim and spills in a hot, burning wave of fury.

What made him so special? Why did he deserve to live when so many others, better men than him, had died? Shouichi was no martyr, much less a hero, like Tsunayoshi and his family had been; he was the catalyst to it all, the one who had given Byakuran the initiate to spread his evil, engulf the world in a blanket of war where only those who submitted themselves to serve him survived. He deserves to die as much Byakuran does, if not more, so why was he being kept alive when he should have been one of the very first ones to die?

He shakes his head before those thoughts can be completed, grits his teeth and tells himself that it doesn't matter what kind of twisted perversion led Byakuran to choose him for his last little project before focusing all of his attention on ruling the world.

It doesn't matter, not anymore, because either way Shouichi wasn't going to give Byakuran the satisfaction of having the last laugh; he would, at the very least, rob him of that victory.

"It makes me really happy to have Shou-chan back where he belongs," Byakuran says as they sit in the back of a sleek, polished car, the tinted windows only making the vast darkness of the man's heart all the more thick, all the more suffocating as it spreads farther and farther into every last inch of the world, "I really did miss having you with me. After all, the company of my oldest, _dearest_ friend is something I will never be able to replace."

Shouichi doesn't respond, not even when the new dictator of the world cups his face in gentle hands, tilts his chin up to meet Byakuran's pale lips in a mockery of a lover's kiss.

His hold on the Vongola Sky ring tighten.

At the first chance he could get-Shouichi would slit his throat and kill himself.

**To be Continued...**

**-**

**A/N: **...aaand that's a wrap, guys!

Last Edited: 10-18-09


	2. Scarlet Letter

**Authors: **Abreaction & KISproductions

**Fandom: **Reborn

**Timeline: **Choice Ark

**Pairings: **10051  
**Rating:** M  
**Genre:** Angst/Tragedy  
**Warnings:** More character deaths, getting more AU-ish, blood, hints of past intimacy, a suicidal Shouichi and the almighty Marshmallow Kingpin.  
**Disclaimer:** Say it with us, _fanfiction_.  
**Summary:** Byakuran is forgiving to the ones he loves.

* * *

**Othello**

* * *

**_Chapter II-_Scarlet Letter**

"Shou-chan, Shou-chan, let's take a bath together like in the old days~"

Byakuran is a ball of bright smiles and energetic motions, forcing Shouichi to remember painful memories of better days as the Millefiore boss drags him out of the car. His smile is childishly innocent, showing a man in the prime of his youth standing at the ultimate pinnacle of happiness. If this had been someone else, in another time and in another world, perhaps Shouichi could've been fooled into believing that this man full of so much enthusiasm and charisma isn't the monster he knows him to be.

He knows better now, knows that falling for that face is the worst possible mistake anyone can make, so he refrains from answering when Byakuran asks him what is wrong after not saying anything for the whole car ride. Purple eyes narrow the slightest bit in what could be considered his first show of displeasure, but still, Shouichi refuses to speak. To the unsuspecting world he may not be being held against his will, for he's sure the white-haired man has already made up a perfect excuse to explain his absence to his family again, but he is well aware he is being forced to play marionette with the ultimate puppeteer again.

Except that this time, Shouichi has no reason to go along with the pull of his strings. No longer is he Byakuran's obedient servant, willingly following his heinous orders for the sake of one day creating a brighter future; no, those days are long behind him now.

With the Vongola dead and the world's last hope of peace smothered out by the beautiful bloodthirsty demon at his side, Shouichi no longer has any reason to keep going.

All that is left for him is to disappear.

Who knows, maybe if he's lucky enough he'll get to see Tsunayoshi again and apologize for everything he is to blame.

Maybe the boy would forgive him.

Shouichi isn't getting his hopes up though.

Arm wrapped around his shoulders, Byakuran leads him through the corridors of what is his temporary residence in Japan, the cheerful smile painted on his lips making this scene seem almost happy, even when there are shackles around his prisoner's wrists and they are being followed by the older man's personal army. It's hard to ignore the hateful eyes the teal-haired Funeral Wrath is glaring at him with, lips set in a thin line as his hands clench into tight fists at his sides while he walks behind him, protecting his precious leader from any harm that might befall him.

It's even harder to pretend Shouichi is anywhere but here.

"Hmm," Byakuran muses out loud, pulls his arm back and the redhead is only momentarily relived to have the other's touch gone, when the older man quickly threads their fingers together, his grip firm but gentle. Shouichi doesn't care for that, he's too busy feeling claustrophobic as he's pulled into the elevator, forced to press close to the white-haired man when the Funeral Wreaths join them in the tiny space. Perhaps noticing his discomfort, Byakuran gives Shouichi's hand a reassuring squeeze, or in the engineer's opinion, a warning to remind him he can't possibly escape, not while he's surrounded by the most elite of the Mafioso's army.

"I know it's not as big as the base back in Italy, but for the time being this is home," he chirps, eyes smiling crescent moons that make a chill pass through Shouichi's body. Grabbing him by his hand again, not minding the shackles dirtying his expensive cufflinks, the man drags him out of the elevator when they reach the top floor, his six silent allies soon falling into step with them, and Shouichi could almost feel the tangible hatred being directed at him from all sides.

Maybe if he's lucky one of them will get rid of him before Byakuran gets his turn to play with him again.

He doesn't let that hope grow, though, knowing quite well that Byakuran has never been one to share his toys with others. Instead, he continues to avoid the purple eyes imploring him to finally say something, desperately turning his attention to the first thing he sees in a pathetic attempt to forget for a second who's company he's in:

The large, beautiful skyscraper is a sight to see, there's no doubt about that; glass is the main décor, and whites upon soft pastel colors furnish the spectacular building, no doubt Byakuran's choice of decorations. The statuesque structure place well with him, a man who believes himself to be above mortals ridden with mistakes, standing at the very top of the food chain where he shows he has what it takes to be a symbol of sovereignty and he will nail anyone who dares deny that to the ground. It is a tall, proud symbol of power, standing amid the sky Byakuran wholeheartedly believes himself to be.

Shouichi knows it is a lie, a position he had robbed from an innocent child Byakuran himself ordered to be put to death for threatening his precious dream of dictatorship laden with the broken hopes of the innocent.

Footsteps ricochet off the pale walls as Shouichi is dragged to what he hopes isn't the man's personal quarters, not having neither the strength nor the courage to even attempt to pull away from Byakuran's gentle yet steely grip when Kikyo holds the door open for his leader, who pulls Shouichi inside what he undoubtedly knows is his private domain for the time being. He's carefully seated on the comfortable sofa adorning the spacious office, not surprised when he sees Byakuran join him. There's an even wider smile on his face now, no doubt aware of the tense atmosphere in the room, the killer intent the leader of Funeral Wreaths is radiating when he wraps an arm around Shouichi's shoulders. Body incredibly tense, the stinging pain in his wrists not helping, the redhead pulls away from the older man's touch as if burned.

Arching a perfectly shaped eyebrow, Byakuran's smile brightens. "Haha, Shou-chan's so shy all of a sudden, it's really cute. But don't worry," he reassures, the perfect image of a friendly host instead of the tyrant he is, "we'll get back to how we once were when we leave Japan. I'm sure being in a more familiar surrounding will help, too."

Leave? Shouichi almost, _almost _asks, but succeeds at biting his tongue before the question has a chance to escape his mouth. It isn't needed, though, because Byakuran sees the question in his eyes, patting the redhead on the head like one would a favored pet.

"We still have some unfinished business here, but don't worry," he adds at the terrorized look that crosses the younger male's bloodied face, most then likely knowing the real reason for the sudden fear Shouichi can feel clogging his lungs but preferring to choose his own interpretations, "they're just some loose ends I have to cut, and then we can go back home for good."

He looks like a king sitting in his golden throne, leisurely sprawled on the leather sofa facing the spectacular glass window shielding them from the gentle drizzle going on outside, his six knights loyally awaiting his orders while all Shouichi can do is hope his deductions on what Byakuran is planning are wrong.

Shouichi should have know better by now though, that anything that concerns Byakuran can, and will wrong for him.

Kikyo voices out the words he can't force himself to say, a scowl on his face he quickly erases when Byakuran turns his smiling eyes on him, right hand still threading through the engineer's vermillion tresses.

"The rest of the Varia has yet to be found, as well as the whereabouts of Lal Mirch." Scoffing, the teal-haired man's lip curl into an angry scowl. "But do not worry, they will be caught soon."

Nodding, the white-haired mafia leader flashes the teal-haired man one of his cheery smiles. "Kikyo-kun is so dependable, I wouldn't know what to do if I didn't have him here with me."

Kikyo's chest swells with pride, arrogance in his handsome face when his eyes find Shouichi's. Shouichi doesn't know if he should pity him. Having Byakuran's favor has its perks, he knows that, but in the end it all amounts to nothing. Old pieces are always replaced with new ones, even knights.

"Shou-chan might know where they are."

He freezes, body completely going stiff when Byakuran pronounces those sentencing syllables. Instantly, he can feel the holder of the Mare Cloud ring glare at him with hateful eyes, all traces of his good mood gone. "With all due respect, Byakuran-sama, taking the word of a traitor might not be the best idea."

"Maa," throwing his head back, Byakuran pouts at his subordinate. "Shou-chan is family, _family_, okay, Kikyo-kun? We can trust him."

Practically biting through his tongue, Kikyo stiffly nods his head, all the while glaring hatefully at the redheaded engineer. Pleased with this, the Millefiore leader once again throws his arm around Shouichi's shoulders, pulling the younger male into an awkward one-arm hug. Shouichi tries not to dwell too much on the warm weight, on how it feels so human.

It is an illusion, after all.

"Ah, you've brought them!"

Byakuran sounds so happy, so _gleeful_, that Shouichi fears looking up to see what has made the tone of the older man's voice sound so chipper. He has no choice, though; cupping his face, the Millefiore boss tilts his chin up, making him look straight at the monitor projecting what looks like an underground basement. It's dark, but the flickering lights, albeit weak, allow him to see just what, no, who is being held captive in the dreary, bleak room.

Without his knowing, his legs move, and he's standing up staring at the screen with his heart feeling too much like it's been ripped to shreds.

"Isn't it good to see some of your friends again, Shou-chan? I brought them here all for _you_," the man says, smiling from ear to ear as his eyes turn to regard the redhead with unadulterated amusement.

He says nothing, barely hearing the white-haired Mafioso's words because he's too busy staring at the monitor in front of him, at the familiar faces that stare back at him with surprise, anger, and something that Shouichi can only call pity.

His lips, frozen numb, twist into a grim, bitter smile that he knows shows exactly how much guilt he's being racked with, unbidden salty tears skidding past cold cheeks as he tries hard not to break down in front of his number one enemy. In return, the last Arcobaleno in existence averts his eyes, turning them on his student's murderer, almost as if giving Shouichi some twisted form of privacy in a world where that word no longer holds any power.

"They will be publicly executed this week," a chirping voice sing-songs close to his ear, Shouichi's legs almost buckling at the sound. Leaning against him, Byakuran rests his face in the crook of the redhead's neck, arms wrapped around the engineer's trembling shoulders as he peers at the bruised faces of his war prisoners. More corpses to add to the already high pile where his throne of broken bones resides. "After all, I have to show the other families that I mean business~"

His knees do buckle under him, and he almost drops Tsunayoshi's ring when he covers his face in an attempt to not let the other see his tears again.

Why must Byakuran mock him so? Hasn't he already done enough to make Shouichi feel like he's not even worth the dust beneath Tsunayoshi's feet? It's almost enough to make him believe the man resents him for leaving his side-an idea that's so farfetched it's not even worth considering. Byakuran is only ridiculing him, laughing at him for being foolish enough to believe he could outsmart him, for daring to think the days Shouichi secretly holds close to his heart ever meant anything to him.

'_Sorry, I don't remember ever making such a promise._'

Clutching the old relic he still refuses to let go in a tight fist, he relishes in the pain the metal brands into his flesh.

'_You're so selfish, Shou-chan_.'

His tears make his vision even more blurry than it already is without his glasses, and for that he's glad. He's a coward, he knows this already, so willing to kill himself if that means he can escape from those chilling, purple eyes that do nothing but cause him pain and misery.

A hand pats his back, as if trying to comfort him while Shouichi sobs. Undoubtedly, it fails. Byakuran doesn't know the meaning of comfort.

"There there, Shou-chan," the man croons, voice incredibly sweet, "don't cry. You know it makes me sad when you make that face."

_Monster_, he wishes he could say, _I hope you rot in hell_. Rot in hell and _stay _there, where a demon like him belongs. But he doesn't, not only because he doesn't have the strength for it, but because he doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing any more of his pain. He won't do anything, because the only way he can spoil his victory, even if one tiny insignificant bit, is by refusing to deliver any sort of entertainment.

That way, he will grow _bored _with him, without any other option but to get rid of him without ever getting the satisfaction of seeing him tear open at the seams.

Yes, that is all Shouichi can do now.

Hand still patting his back, Byakuran shakes his head. "Ah, Shou-chan, and here I thought seeing your friends would cheer you up." Pursuing his lips when the redhead refuses to say anything, the white-haired man childishly puffs his cheeks, eyebrows slightly drawn together in mock hurt.

"Shou-chan, you're hurting my feelings," he chimes, expression showing heartache. "Do you not like my present?"

Kikyo shifts, expression as hard as concrete when Byakuran continues to kneel at Shouichi's side, fruitless trying to draw a reaction from his broken doll. His jaw tightens, nails digging into the palms of his hands the tighter he makes his fists and Byakuran smiles.

Shouichi hiccups, roughly wiping away his tears with the back of his free hand at the same time he draws back from the taller man's touch, wrapping an arm around his middle in attempt to hold himself together. Kikyo draws in his breath, Byakuran's smile widens, growing steely and with the first hint of actual, visible danger Shouichi has ever seen the man show.

"I was afraid we would grow apart while you stayed with Tsunayoshi-kun," he muses, eyes just a tad bit cold. "It makes me sad to see I was right."

He flinches when elegant fingers settle on his hair, vermillion tresses curling around the pianist-like digits. Stubbornly, he refuses to look up at him, determinedly staring at the first thing he sees, not caring that teal colored eyes glare back at him with twice the hatred.

"I really hope we can go back to how we used to be, Shou-chan," standing up, Byakuran sighs, hand still threading through his ex-engineer's hair. "Otherwise I think I really might cry."

"I see Irie Shouichi's betrayal is still a sore spot for you, Byakuran," Reborn says, and Shouichi is surprised to see a cocky curl to the little Mafioso's lips despite being in the same situation as the engineer: in chains, powerless, and without a chance of beating their greatest enemy. "I can't relate, as I've obviously never been betrayed by one of my family members, much less my bishop."

A smirk blooms on the little Mafioso's bruised lips, and despite the blood and injuries he's covered in, he doesn't look the least bit defeated, standing proud and tall even while in chains.

Shouichi can't help but feel respect swell in his chest, a feeling he's never felt while in Byakuran's presence.

_Liar_, a condemning voice suddenly whispers in his head, but with a bitter taste in his mouth, he chooses to ignore it.

Those days are long gone, and they are never coming back.

Salty tears prick the corners of his eyes at their memory, blurring his vision and he almost misses Reborn's proud stance, the arrogant tilt of his chin when he looks his nose down at Byakuran all the way down from what Shouichi is pretty sure must be the prisoner cells.

"It must hurt, though, knowing you're not good enough of a leader to keep your men from jumping ship."

Byakuran laughs good-naturedly, eyes only growing colder. "You must be mistaken, Reborn-kun. Shou-chan is my most _beloved _friend, I can forgive a betrayal or two if it's him." His tone of voice seems to say, albeit mockingly, as he stares back at the Arcobaleno through the monitor with that disturbing smile on his beautiful face, '_wouldn't you_?'

Even when he is floors below him, in what he knows must be the underground floors of Byakuran's temporary base, Shouichi can't help but feel astounded at how unshaken and unafraid Reborn is. Unlike him, who every time he meets the eyes of the Millefiore boss, can't help but feel as if all his strength is being zapped away. He wishes that kind of strength could inspire something in him, make him brave enough to jump out the nearest window and curse Byakuran with his dying breath, but all it does is make him feel more wretched.

"You are a cruel man, Byakuran of the Millefiore family," the proud hit man says, Byakuran's disgustingly saccharine smile only widening at his words. Shouichi silently agrees with the last Arcobaleno; killing him would be much more kinder, so of course that option is completely out of the question.

Shouichi isn't here out of the kindness of Byakuran's heart after all.

"Really?" tilting his head to the side, Byakuran seems to ponder the Arcobaleno's words. "And here I always thought of myself as a generous one."

Strong hands grip Shouichi's shoulders, and the next thing he knows Kikyo is dragging him to Byakuran's side, glaring at him with utmost disgust as he plops him next to his leader, all the while looking like he's holding himself back from crushing his windpipe with his bare hands. Crossing his legs, Byakuran's eyes grow half-lidded as he throws an arm around the redhead, pulling him close while he makes a show of caressing the bloodied side of his face.

"I'm sure if one of your men betrayed you, you would no doubt get rid of him on the spot." Fingers resting on the slash running down Shouichi's cheekbone, Byakuran tenderly wipes the blood away. "I, on the other hand, am a forgiving man. A kind man. If I wasn't, would my darling Shouichi still be among us?"

The fingers resting on his cheek shift, gripping his chin, tilting his face up until his green eyes lock with amused purple ones. Shouichi holds back the urge to spit on his face when the tips of his digits caress his lower lip, the flavor of the powdery soft candies he often indulges himself in tasting disgusting in his mouth.

"And because I'm _such _a generous man," he goes on, no longer paying any attention to his engineer, eerie colored eyes set on a much bigger prize now. "I'm willing to let bygones be bygones, after all, I've been dying to have a conversation with someone as prodigious as Reborn-kun for a long time now."

Reborn's jaw goes tense, eyes narrowing, the implications of Byakuran's words not lost on him. "Don't insult me, Millefiore."

"Maa, so formal, Reborn-kun," the achromatic-haired man chirps, playful smile back on the game. "I thought we were friends."

"I have better taste than that," Reborn shots back, little body stiff in his chains.

"Is that your final answer?" he counters, not seeming to have heard the Arcobaleno's words.

Reborn doesn't grace him with an answer, but his body language is enough.

"Hmm. Too bad," Byakuran laments, and Shouichi _almost _believes him to be actually disappointed, unmoving as the dictator jovially pets his blood-matted hair. "I really did think we could grow to be good friends."

Having said this, the screen goes blank, and Shouichi sees his last glimpse of Tsunayoshi's tutor, who looks at him with that same expression of would-be pity again before he's gone, leaving another empty feeling in his chest to add to the one where Tsunayoshi's friendship used to reside.

He knows he won't be seeing the hit man again.

"Ah, that Reborn is so stubborn, isn't he, Shou-chan?" Pulling him closer, Byakuran rests his head on the redhead's shoulder, who freezes, breathing speeding up when he feels puffs of warm breath on his collarbone. "He reminds me of how you used to be when we first me. Haha, I remember it took me a while to get Shou-chan to agree to go on a date with me."

Unbidden heat floods his cheeks, already rapid heartbeat speeding up when Byakuran's lips grows dangerously close to his own when he grabs him by his wrist, almost knocking him out of balance and into his lap. Breaths growing shallower, Shouichi swallows thickly, tightly closing his eyes.

Lifting his captive's hand, Byakuran closes his eyes in a demure smile as he takes the Vongola Sky ring from Shouichi's hold. "Also, I'm borrowing this, okay, Shou-chan?"

This time, he reacts, panicked as he reaches for the old relic. "Wait, Byakuran-san-"

Tsunayoshi. It's the only thing he has left of Tsunayoshi, Byakuran can't take that, too, he just can't.

"Ah ah, naughty Shou-chan," Byakuran scolds him like one would a misbehaving pet, holding the redhead's outstretched arm by the wrist. "Have your forgotten so soon? This isn't a toy you can play with, our family needs this."

_Of course I haven't you bastard_, he grits his teeth in anger, still fruitlessly reaching for the last tangible little piece of the tenth Vongola he has left. How could he not, when all the time he had been by his side Byakuran did nothing but preach about his dream, about what they needed to make it happen.

Inspecting the ring, covered in both his blood and Tsunayoshi's, Byakuran makes a sound of appreciation. Then, still holding Shouichi's hand prisoner, he tilts his head to the side, facing the leader of the Funeral Wreaths who, as soon as he feels the boss's eyes on him, straightens up and waits for his leader to speak.

"Kikyo-kun, can I trouble you with a favor?" he asks, and Shouichi has no idea why he bothers asking when he knows the teal-haired man would gladly do anything for him. After all, Byakuran values utmost loyalty above strength, picking his subordinates with that special quality over their power.

Kikyo looks arrogant, privileged, aware he is once again receiving Byakuran's favor as he nods with determination, the pride on his features making Shouichi feel a little sick. He remembers what it felt like to follow Byakuran's orders, and the memory of it is enough to make him want to empty his already vacant stomach.

"I'll be busy this week, so would you mind playing with Shou-chan while I'm gone?" Gently closing his eyes, Byakuran's smile grows, if possible, even more sweeter. "I don't want him to get lonely without me, you see, so I thought a playmate might suffice."

For a fraction of a millisecond, almost too short for Shouichi to pick up on, the corners of Kikyo's lips twitch before arching into a forced smile. Despite the nearly tangible fog his lack of glasses created, the engineer could almost concretely sense the unadulterated hatred emanating from the teal-haired man. Despite his pride, he nods stiffly once more, his pupils glaring into the apostate's.

"Of course not, Byakuran-sama," he replies, expertly veiling his contempt behind a relaxed curve of the lips. "I am honored to perform any task you will of me."

At the sound of the final sibilant rolling off of Kikyo's tongue, Shouichi feels his shoulders tremble slightly. The leader of the Funeral Wreaths' tone of voice, his demeanor and the way that his eyes, even while slathered with a thick tier of haze, seem to locate only the entity of his supposed deity, the God he would protect no matter the number of bodies that piled in his wake, was all too familiar to Shouichi. The symptoms of an unparalleled devotion that knew no bounds.

Kikyo is enthralled—enamored by Byakuran's saccharine words with dangerous undertones, the way every syllable and vowel rolls off of his tongue. The distinct presence he had in every room, subtly demanding attention with every sweet smile his lips curved into.

Shouichi feels a thick, lumpy substance rising up in his throat. Déjà vu hits him hard over the head until he feels like reeling or vomiting into Byakuran's lap, staining that impeccable white of his.

From only a few words out of the man's mouth, he can tell.

Kikyo is so brainwashed that it almost pains Shouichi to even hear the sound of his voice. It pains him to remember, albeit no matter how hard he had tried in the past to will the retentions to slip him by and stop haunting him whenever his eyelids slid shut, he could never forget the rapid acceleration of his heartbeat pounding inside his throat as opposed to where it belonged in his chest, the perceptive albeit witty comments, and the teasing that their relationship was once composed of.

He remembers the way his senses would ignite whenever Byakuran looked at him, the way his lavender eyes gave his attention to him and only him.

"Ah, good to hear~" Shouchi feels Byakuran's breath tickle the chipping blood encompassing his laceration, frustrated with his apparent display of his lack of self-control as the feeling of calefaction in his cheeks refused to dissipate.

When Kikyo takes a small step forward, Shouichi can feel Byakuran's fingers dig slightly deeper into his shoulder and indiscreetly pull him the slightest bit closer, as if to make sure that he knew that there were no means to escape. The idea of gouging out the Millefiore leader's eyes with his nails is enticing.

Shouichi swallows bile, the feeling of Byakuran's fingers curled around his wrist, the man's thumb caressing the jutting bone created from sleepless nights conspiring to bring the owner of the cosmos down off from his soapbox above all mankind, is driving him over the edge. Even with the Millefiore leader who thinks himself to be a God washing his hands in the blood of children and turning a blind eye to his innumerable sins, his unmatched touch still ignites something in the deepest regions of the redhead's heart.

Shouichi wants to kill himself for that.

Despite the look of an unadulterated mesh of anger and vulgarity he flashes Shouichi as he steps in front of his boss on the couch, Kikyo still offers his loyalty to Byakuran, at his beck and call to do whatever he asks of him.

With a mock pout on his face, Byakuran looks up at Kikyo. "Ma, there's some business I must take care of right now. Will Kikyo-kun keep an eye on Shou-chan until I come back?"

Kikyo watches as Shouichi continues to uselessly reach for the last piece of Tsunayoshi, his hope, that he can palpably hold close to his heart. A semblance of a scowl curls his lip slightly as he nods. "Of course, Byakuran-sama."

"Ah, it's so great that I have such a loyal leader of my Funeral Wreaths," Byakuran's smile grows sweeter as he watches Kikyo's prideful reaction to his words. Shouichi feels sick; a simple compliment from the lips of an animal with a god complex is enough to make the Funeral Wreath leader get a surge of dignity.

After what seemed to be years, Byakuran relinquished his grip around Shouichi's wrist, warranting a small sigh of relief from his captive. Placing his hands on his ex-engineer's shoulders and turning him to the side to face him, the Millefiore leader cradles the redhead's cheeks in his palms. "Be a good boy to Kikyo-kun, okay, Shou-chan?" he says in a voice best suited for a child, his thumb tracing over the gash in his cheek.

Shouichi's hands curl into a fist so tight that it visibly trembles.

"Temper, temper, Shou-chan," Byakuran reminds him as he feigns a sullen appearance, stroking his redhead's cheek one last time despite hearing the sounds of shackles clacking against one another as Shouichi, literally, trembles with rage.

Nuzzling his nose against Shouichi's cheek in a mock form of intimacy, his smile widening as he feels his captive shudder slightly, the leader of the Millefiore family stands up off the couch. With that damn smile on that face of his, Byakuran had stolen the keys to the sky, and is still under the impression that he could just slip back into everyday life with the man who had tried to defend the lock to the heavens.

Shouichi counts the steps that it takes Byakuran to walk to the door, his heart sinking deeper and deeper into the depths of his stomach with every click of the man's heel. His lips form around unspoken potential bloody fates that he longed for Byakuran to meet.

Stopping at the doorway, one hip leaning against the frame, Byakuran turns to face his apostate and apostle. Flicking Tsunayoshi's ring into the air before snatching it in his hand once more, his smile grows to new heights as he watches the pained reaction on Shouichi's face. "Play nice, now~"

The redhead exhales as the door clicks closed and Byakuran exits the room. As he leaves, the air seems to return to its natural state, as opposed to being perfectly erected to perfection for the sake of the man who thought himself to be a God. For a disgusting leech who thrived off of sucking the life out of children, depending on the blood of all humanity to survive.

Suddenly, he feels something warm coil around his elbow, yanking him off of the couch and onto the tiled floor. Against his better judgment, he allows a small cry to slip past his lips and tumble into the air as his scraped knees slam against the ground.

"Shut up," a voice, almost tangibly dripping with choler, growls. Shouichi hears the sound of a lock turning and something metal, he surmised a key, dropping to the tile.

Kikyo circles him like a shark would its prey before going in for the kill and plunging its teeth into every semblance of life until it was dripping down his sharp teeth in adhesive droplets. Shouichi can feel the murderous intentions emanating off of every click of the Funeral Wreath leader's heels against the tile, making the plexus of systems inside his body begin to unravel as fear dictates his heart and mind.

From where he sits, on his knees and with tears unwillingly coalescing in the raw rims of his eyes, Shouichi sees the tremor in Kikyo's fingers, the trembling of his wrist. The way he's mentally holding himself back on a tight leash, forcing himself to not even touch any part of his God's captive—not a brush of the shoulder or even his knuckles smashing against his cheek, for he would not be able to contain himself and would _crush_ every portion of Shouichi until he crumbled into nothing. He can hear the hatred dripping from every insult expelled from Kikyo's oral cavity, the sharp clicks of his heel smashing against the floor. The dull polish reflected off of the man's boots blinds Shouichi.

A pregnant silence hangs between them, noiseless and breathless all but the scuffing of Kikyo's soles against the floor, searching for the blind spot in Shouichi's botched armor that he could use to break him down.

When Kikyo finally parts his lips, the sound of his breathing makes Shouichi crane his neck up to look at him. In the concise room, the sound of the man's thin inhalation seemed to ricochet off of the walls encasing them. He blinks away inadvertent tears clinging to the rims of his eyes as he attempts to refocus his blurred vision.

"Did you think you had special privileges, hm, you insignificant waste?" Kikyo asks without missing a beat, the pace of his spiral around Shouichi growing slower as he closes in on him. The sound of his shoes tapping against the tile rapidly grows louder and more sharp until the engineer jumps whenever they meet the ground—knowing with every cell in his body that seemed to be coated in a thick layer of frost as the man flashed a sinister smirk in his direction, that the man was imagining his skull nether his heel when he crunched it onto the ground.

"Do you think, in your betrayer's botched perception of reality, since you were once friends with Byakuran-sama, that this gave you merit to toy with his goodwill and lead it to the slaughter when you stabbed him in the back?" There is a semblance of vague hysteria in Kikyo's typically calm demeanor, growing more prominent as the sound of the man's sharp soles slapping against the tile accelerates. "If I were to physically harm you," Kikyo begins, his previously dangerous tone melting into a calmer, mellower demeanor, "Byakuran-sama would be angry. That is the sole reason as to why you're still alive, so don't forget it."

_You're only his executioner,_ Shouichi mentally offers, involuntarily feeling his lower lip quivering, that familiar raw feeling stinging at the rims of his eyes, clawing into them until he feels dampness, small droplets, on the edges and preparing to tip over onto his cheeks. _You mean nothing to him. When he tires of you, he will find someone else to eliminate you, just like Genkishi. We'll all end up like Genkishi; we're only allowed to live until we become predictble and he tires of us._

To only be able to watch, hopeless and helpless, as his tears stained the dirt above Tsunayoshi's body a darker hue of brown.

The engineer, suddenly overcome by a heavy sense of nausea, climbing up his throat and into his mouth where it swirls around with the movements of his tongue, parted his lips and reeled. On his hands and knees, Shouichi dips his nose over the floor, his shadow melting into the molding juxtaposed to every individual tile, gagging until the urge to vomit the contents of his already barren stomach subsides.

Kikyo snorts in disgust, the sound of his soles scuffing the floor resonating in the captive's subconscious as he nears him. Despite his best efforts, Shouichi, pathetic as he knows it is, holds his breath and shuts his eyes tight enough that his vision is speckled with polychromatic stars as the leader of the Funeral Wreaths stands over him, the weight of the man's shadow almost palpably holding him down as he trembles. He buries his head in his hands, recoiling as the feeling of his damp eyelashes fluttering against Tsunayoshi's chipping blood in his palms tickles them slightly.

"Pathetic," Kikyo mutters, pressing the tip of his boot into Shouichi's ribs and lightly, as if not to leave any marks or flesh-deep wounds on his skin, kicking him over so that his back was lying on the floor. Stray, glossy teal tresses cosset the corner of his amused smirk as the Funeral Wreath leader tilts his head slightly to the left, debating whether or not to drive his heel into the betrayer's chest and watch him moan in agony, scream out his name in a pained voice as affliction dominates his heart and he begs him over and over again to stop. He would never. "Don't you dare ever forget how worthless you are."

From his peripheral vision, the engineer can see Kikyo's tongue absent-mindedly gliding over his lips with deliberate lethargy, taste buds savoring the soft moans and pleas he imagined would tumble from Shouichi's mouth if he inflicted _his_ kind of punishment for betrayers onto every organ inside his body, every inch of skin coating his skeleton, and every split nail. It leaves a thin residue of dampness on the pink flesh.

Against his better judgment, Shouichi can feel himself shivering, a thick layer of frost coating every single bone in his body until he is trembling. He's disgusted by himself; Tsunayoshi must have been terrified when he played martyr for his family. He can remember the soft squishing noise of the child's shoes in the mud as he stepped towards the chopping block, Kyoko and Haru and Gokudera's voices splitting open as they screamed their emotions in an incoherent mantra. The others, Yamamoto and Hibari and Dino and other ones whose names he could not remember until he thought long and hard about it, were not as loud. Shouichi remembers the utter silence despite the members of the Funeral Wreaths and their laughter at the Vongola's haplessness, he remembers hearing the sound of empty air swishing inside of the Tenth's lungs.

In that one instant, on the cusp of living and breathing with Tsunayoshi's small body cradled against his chest and with his trembling hand slowly reaching up to touch his cheek, Shouichi had suddenly realized everything that was wrong with him. Tsunayoshi was trying to free his family, the world—_him._

He was the only thing he had at all, and when he lost him to the mud and worms in the mass grave, Shouichi had nothing at all.

Kikyo still watches him, hovering over him with the same deliberate smirk that he flashed Tsunayoshi before he…

Shouichi sinks his front teeth into his bottom lip in an attempt to muffle his sob.

Squatting, Kikyo looms over the captive, his eyebrows arched downwards and arms folded over one another, his lips curling into a scowl. Thrusting his hand into Shouichi's hair, grunting in vexation when the tips of his fingers brush over coagulated clots of blood clinging to the vermillion strands, he digs his nails into his scalp and forces him to his knees.

"Finally, a reaction out of you," Kikyo comments as Shouichi gasps at the pain. "Don't you dare even _think_ about spoiling my boots with your revolting vomit; you're the _dirt_ under my soles."

Shouichi said nothing; there was no use in attempting to communicate and make words to someone frowning in loyalty to a plague—to a monster.

From being the assistant to Byakuran's insanity for too many years than he would like to recall and would probably suppress a sob if he had to count them on his fingers, Shouichi knew the simple process, contingent upon one single quality, that the carnivorous monster selected the crest of his family by. Loyalty, an important devotion that Kikyo knows Shouichi lacks, eclipsed by the hatred worming its way into his heart. The tiered Millefiore family could never be flawed when the higher-ups were driven by their unmatched commitment to Byakuran and his desires to curl his fingers around the oblate spheroid of the Earth, and dig his nails into it until the core of the planet cracks and engulfs all semblances of life.

Destroying the world to have a better one arise from the ashes, with only those with special pardons from _God_ being allowed to survive the pyres—like something akin to a botched version of Noah's Ark. It would never work. The world was not a phoenix; there would be nothing to spring up from the dust and grime of the old world. There would be nothing.

_Byakuran-san knows this._ Shouichi's pupils dilate.

"You've caused Byakuran-sama so much trouble, do you know that?" Kikyo snarls, the harsh connotations to his words shoving itself down Shouichi's throat until he is gagging on every syllable that escapes the man's mouth. Every tremor in his voice exposes his anger to air more, causing it to grow and thrive until it latches onto his heart. Tugging on the captive's hair, the left corner of his lips twitching into a more sinister smirk as his gruff actions elicites a mewl from his God's personal apostate, he pulls the redhead closer to him until he can literally smell the dried blood on his cheeks.

"You're more trouble than you're worth," Kikyo mutters, his grip on the vermillion tresses intensifying a slight bit before loosening. "I don't take kindly to those who betray Byakuran-sama, swine."

Shouichi feels his wrists begin to quake with unhinged rage. Kikyo has no idea just how _brainwashed_ he is, his mind cleared of anything and everything that didn't involve Byakuran or a smile flashed in his direction.

In spite of his failures, washing his hands in Tsunayoshi's blood to take away the stains, and his own childish curiosity and aspirations of becoming a musician to blame for the imminent destruction of the entirety of the cosmos, Shouichi could feel his blood pressure rising with every insult that Kikyo says. He could feel his veins bursting, his mouth begging him to open and talk back, to allow useless phrases and sentences to spill onto the floor at Kikyo's feet.

Weakness, apparent and obvious and making Kikyo sicker by the moment. Kikyo's nails, probably still with Tsunayoshi's blood slathered over and under the surface, dig deeper into his scalp, turning his face upwards until Shouichi is squinting in the surprisingly bright lighting overhead, trying to differentiate Kikyo's blurry outline from his umbra mingling in the shadows. He can feel the light from the bulbs caught in the tips of his eyelashes, and he tries to blink them away. Kikyo's face twists with a vehemence that Shouichi had previously considered to be humanly impossible.

Byakuran isn't human.

Shoulders laden with unhinged rage, trembling as he attempted to quell the enticing salacity to grind the lungs of the pathetic ignoramus below him nether his fist, Kikyo tugs at the locks in his grasp, smirking slightly as Shouichi tumbles where he dragged him, panting and knees scraped.

His eyebrows arch downwards, however, when the redhead involuntarily makes a noise of displeasure, forming on his lips and absconding from his mouth before he could stop himself.

"Do you think you're above God, hm? Some almighty sentient being with the cosmos dancing and sparking at his fingertips?" Kikyo leans closer to the captive, their faces growing nearer until Shouichi can see the blurred flecks of green and geometric shapes swirling inside the Funeral Wreath leader's irises, the man's gasped breathing fanning over his nose enough to gag him. "Tch, are you a mute dog?"

Despite his best efforts, Shouichi cannot pry his lips open. He cannot speak, only allow Kikyo to believe that his insults are falling upon deaf ears. Only watch as Tsunayoshi _dies_ over and over again in his mind.

The redhead swallows, loose teal strands tickling his cheeks as Kikyo heaves, refraining from bringing his fist down and making the captive's eyelids mingle with his knuckles, turning a shiny black from their encounter.

"Any being that believes it is above God is a monster."

_Byakuran-san is a monster,_ Shouichi thinks, his chest heaving in a botched attempt to open his mouth and verbalize his thoughts._ A carnivorous, ruthless animal with no morals. God would not smile like some goddamn saint while telling his prophets to slay children and let a sinner live._

"When you lose Byakuran-sama's favor," Kikyo begins, a dangerous edge to the corner of his lips as he smirks, his fingers threaded through Shouichi's hair clenching into a fist tight enough to make the captive whimper in the pain he knows he deserves, "when my God decides that a Judas deserves execution as opposed to pardons, I'll make sure that I'll be the one to end your inferior existence, _Irie Shouichi_."

At the sound of his own name on Kikyo's tongue, the engineer feels his shoulders quiver and frost collect on every plexus of his body. Against his knowledge, he's shaking, warm tears trickling down his cold sanguinary cheeks.

The man snorts in annoyance, his perpetual puff of breath causing a strand of glossy teal to rise before falling back down to its initial position against the corner of his lip.

His own wrist shuddering, too, with the repressed desire to murder and refill Byakuran's oceans with the blood of heretics, Irie Shouichi's drained body first.

Kikyo is the apostle of Byakuran, the God placed upon a pedestal of broken skeletons that he couldn't see the ground from, while Shouichi is the apostate. The hated traitor forced to find a muddled form of catharsis by the very _God_ he swore to eliminate from the verses of the Bible he once helped write.

Shouichi can hear his blood coursing through his veins in his ear as if he has pressed a shell against it. He deserves this, he knew. The only form of atonement he could ever commit would be to die for his sins—not a plunge into martyrdom like Tsunayoshi and his family had done the second that the boy had pushed the protective and sobbing Gokudera to the side, closed his eyes so tightly that the engineer knew the boy saw multicolored specks in his otherwise black vision, sucked in his breath and trapped it in his lungs and accepted his fate, but a way of cleansing the world.

However. He would not allow an apostle of Byakuran, the man who believed that the fluttering of his eyelids created the breeze, be the one to end his life. Never. He wouldn't give him that satisfaction, the pleasure of ending his life when Byakuran grew bored of him and his lack of reactions; he'd die by his own hand. Even if Byakuran never tired of him and longed to keep him by his side, tormenting him and twirling his vermillion locks in between his fingers for cheap entertainment as he recoiled from his touch, for all of eternity, Shouichi would find a way to cease his breathing. To make his heart stop beating and pumping in his eardrums, reminding him that while Tsunayoshi was crudely buried beneath thick tiers of mud, he's still living.

He would kill himself—his final offering for a vermiculated form of abreaction, to finally have some clarity for Tsunayoshi's last words.

He can't forget. The cut-off circulation in his wrists, feeling like pins and needles plunging themselves over and over again into his arms, due to the shackles is useless. The words Kikyo haphazardly berates him with are useless.

_Don't react._

If he shows him any emotion, any semblance of a reaction, he knows he'll fall.

_'Shouichi-kun, please…'_

"You disgust me," The man snarls, his lips curling into a scowl as he spits at the floor nether Shouichi's soles, a bit of the spittle deluging his heel. "You're pathetic—just looking at you makes me ill. I can't even look at you."

_Shouldn't the feeling of stepping on crushed skulls make you sick?_ The engineer mentally accuses as his tongue pushes against the small gap between his upper and bottom lip, forcefully trying to open his mouth so he could speak.

"I swear that I'll kill you. I'll bring an end to your miserable and worthless life with my _bare hands_, for God doesn't listen to the pleas of sinners, _Shouichi_," Kikyo reminds him, choking out his name as if he were chewing on knives.

Blankly, the engineer—the supposed biblical apostate—watches Kikyo, his mannerisms all falling aside as he allows undiluted rage to pool into every plexus of his systems, allowing anger to consume him.

Voracious piety. Kikyo needs more and more, an unquenchable coveting for the throne beside Byakuran. To see that his disgusting dreams of carnage and bereavement come to fruition. Kikyo won't stop fighting and soaking his hands in blood until there are carcasses lining every street. He's brainwashed, and Shouichi remembers the time where he was locked in Byakuran's spell, having an affinity for his mannerisms, a respect for his intelligence, and just wanting nothing more but than to play chess or Choice with him in between every elective.

Kikyo is jealous—envious of the relationship he once had with and the blankets he once shared with Byakuran.

_You can have him,_ Shouichi thinks, longing to spit the words at Kikyo's face, but his molars grinding against one another is the only sound that escapes his mouth.

"It's your fault they're dead," Kikyo fulminates, his teeth shown as his lips curl into an even deeper scowl.

Shouichi fumbles with his breath. He _knew_.

All that matters is that Tsunayoshi is being eaten by dirt-dwelling insects while Shouichi is here, very much alive and once more in Byakuran's clutches.

"Don't you wish it were you instead of him? You're the most worthless, insignificant waste in the entire world and you are undeserving of Byakuran-sama's generosity."

_I'm not alive out of the goodness of Byakuran-san's heart._

Back to square one. They had worked so hard to fight Byakuran, to defeat him and asphyxiate his dreams of turning the world into a burning bush to symbolize his supposed omnipotence, albeit they never knew that they were actively drowning the entire time. Stuck in a current with harsh waves and foam of regret and hopelessness lapping at their hips, but they thought that they could remain afloat if they stayed together. So, with this belief hooked in both heart and mind, Tsunayoshi and Shouichi locked hands and interlaced fingers.

But they drowned.

Shouichi came up only to pull Tsunayoshi under.

"Hm," Kikyo muses, the redhead remaining perfectly still as the feel of teal-haired man's eyes traveling over his shoulders, waist and neck presses down against his ribcage, forcing him to suck up all of the air he could in his lungs before he is crushed. "I think I'll start with your legs, so you'll forever be prostrating yourself to Byakuran-sama," he spits the words at his feet.

_Byakuran-san's breath is not the wind; _he wants to tell him, as he's on his knees with his face upturned and jawbones straining to part his lips. The valve of his mouth rapidly opens and closes, yet no words escape his tongue—not a semblance of a syllable or even the most miniscule of noises. Nothing. Absolute and incessant silence. Why should he have the right to speak, when Tsunayoshi could never clarify the skewed connotation of his final words, which fell upon ears deafened to anything but sobs and screams?

"Look me in the eye when I speak to you, swine." Yanking his hair backwards so Shouichi is forced to stare only at him, the engineer realizes that Kikyo had stopped smirking a while ago. The man's initial pleasure of torturing him had been eclipsed by inexplicable and insurmountable rage.

He feels his pathetic heartbeat rapidly accelerating, his breath coming in quick miniscule wheezes. He knows it's pathetic—pathetic because he doesn't deserve to feel frightened. Not when everything is his fault entirely.

Recalling books he had sifted through over the years back when Byakuran-san was just a friend to him with no malicious intentions in mind (or were they always there, buried beneath that smile of his but craving oxygen to thrive?), Shouichi remembers the way that the edges of the pages would curl in when he wanted to save his place in the chapter.

There's a trick, a way to calm himself down. Something small and useless that his mind had initially eroded. Something that his older sister had taught him after he had been hit by a teenager on a bicycle. Count up from one to ten, she had said, and then count from ten to one again. It helps. Don't think about the pain.

"You're revolting."

_One, two, three…_

"You're a sycophant—leaching off of any person, child or God, that you can sink your teeth into."

_Four, five…_

"If you do not please Byakuran-sama, I will kill you."

_Six, seven… eight…_

"When God asks you a question, you are obedient and nod your head and reply. Give him a smile, because he's the only reason that you're still polluting the world with your unwanted and unnecessary presence. No one loves you—everyone would like to see you die, slowly, suffer a bit, have your pathetic moans and pleas be their background music and entertain them," Kikyo spits, the acid in his demeanor nearly tangible as his fist in Shouichi's hair shakes. "I don't know what Byakuran-sama sees in you—why he finds it to be a necessity to keep you alive and healthy."

_Nine… ten…_

"Listen to me, dog," he hisses, his grip around Shouichi's vermillion tresses intensifying before he pulls him closer.

_Ten, nine… nine… eight, seven…_

"You're an _animal_, a traitor to God and unworthy of life. I will make sure that you die like the animal you are. If you don't do whatever Byakuran-sama asks of you, I will destroy you."

_Six, five, four, three… two…_

"You belong to him."

_One._

Shouichi feels faint, the world is spinning too fast on its axis for him to keep up and he feels himself slipping, choking in the funnel with no air that Byakuran threw him into.

_The second he's not looking. The minute, the second, the second…_

"You have no choice but to please him," Kikyo spits, his hands clenching in and out of fists, in and out In and out. "If God touches you, you react. You salivate, you little bitch. If Byakuran-sama looks at you, you hold his gaze. God is benevolent and generous—but his apostles aren't—not to a sinning Judas like you, Irie Shouichi. You are a pathetic, vulgar waste of the oxygen that Byakuran-sama breathes. If you don't please him—if you do not reciprocate and please my _God_, I promise you, Irie Shouichi, I will brand you with a scarlet letter with my _nails_ in your chest."

_…I will slit my throat and bleed out on Byakuran-san's bed._

Rough hands encircle his shoulders, roughly shoving him down until he is on his knees, palms pressed against the cold tile, the torn synthetic fibers of the fabric caught inside his lacerations on his calves. A small gasp slips past his lips. He can almost hear the sound of Kikyo's lips arching into a sadistic smirk.

The callous palms molded by murder push him down father into the floor as if hoping he would just sink right into it, holding him in place balancing on his knees. Wisps of teal caress Shouichi's forehead and lips as Kikyo dips his mouth down to the conch of the engineer's ear, his warm breath flooding the redhead's skin. "You will kneel before God," he whispers.

_I'd rather die first._

**To be Continued...**

**-**

OH GOD Dx We are awful people...but damn, Kikyo was on fire here *swoons* Ain't he a doll? Next chapter, things get steamy, if you catch our drift *winky blinky*


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